From ETPs to Staking: taking advantage of on-chain finance

Speakers

• ‍Olivier Galaud, Chief Business Officer at Everstake
• Ray Dillet, Head of Financial Institutions (Europe) at Bitwise
• Anoosh Arevshatian, Chief Product Officer at Zodia Custody
• Raphaël Bloch, Cofounder & Editor in Chief at The Big Whale

1. On-chain infrastructure is becoming institutionalised

• Everstake already operates 40,000 nodes for $7bn staked, demonstrating that staking has become an industrial activity in its own right.
• The market is evolving from purely technical staking towards a logic of on-chain yield, offering transparent cash flows that can be exploited via financial products.

2. On-chain yield asserts itself as an institutional rates product

• Institutions aim to outperform traditional finance by a few dozen basis points, without excessive exposure to risk.
• The market is entering its structuring phase: transition from raw staking to packaged products (ETP, ETF, vaults, structured yield).
• Differentiation is now based on the quality of the infrastructure, the guarantees provided, the level of security and control of slashing risk.

3. Regulators kick off the 2025-2026 wave

• The FCA's green light for staking outside fund status considerably simplifies the launch of yield products.
• This decision accelerates the standardisation of yield-bearing ETPs/ETFs and opens up retail and wholesale access to products based on staking.
• For custodians, this is a major turning point: no more "chain by chain" authorisations, assessment becomes internal and procedural.

4. The strategic value chain: infra + custodian + asset manager

• The infrastructure (Everstake) ensures security, performance and technical integration.
• The custodians (Zodia) guarantee control, compliance, reporting and regulatory eligibility, while protecting against risks (slashing, sanctioned addresses, execution errors).
• Asset managers (Bitwise) transform this yield into distributable products: single-asset ETPs, indices, yield products, future structured products.

5. Explosive growth... but framed by structural limits

• Yield on-chain is sustainable, but only within a realistic range (high single digits). Models at 30%+ are considered unstable or too risky.
• The market will undergo strong consolidation: only channels with real utility, sufficient liquidity and a sustainable economy will survive. VC-backed channels with no real use will not survive.
• The boom in yield products is attracting hedge funds, wealth managers and private banks, who see it as an area for arbitrage and product innovation that is still largely untapped.

6. Europe vs US: catching up, specialisation and structuring opportunities

• The US dominates crypto ETFs, but Europe maintains its lead in indexed, thematic and multi-asset products.
• 2026 should see an increase in structured products (guaranteed yield, partially protected capital, option overlay) thanks to the volatility of on-chain assets.
• For market players, this is just the beginning: on-chain yield is paving the way for a true crypto rates market, conducive to structuring.

Conclusion

On-chain yield is emerging from the DeFi laboratory to become a real rates asset class, with identified flows, regulated wrappers (ETP/ETF), a professional value chain and a regulatory framework that is stabilising.
The next few years will see:

• the rise of structured products backed by staking,
• the consolidation of blockchains around real utility,
• and above all the massive arrival of institutions that will treat yield on-chain as a normal component of their portfolios, in the same way as credit or money markets.